Track down the trails of some amazing ants in the tropical forests of Costa Rica with Field Museum curator Corrie Moreau and her team of researchers and scientists-in-training. For Expeditions at The Field Museum, we asked Corrie to document the team’s daily life as well as their discoveries revealing the connection between ant diets and species diversity—and what these trends tell us about our own health and evolutionary history!

Army Ants

10 months ago

Catch up with a roving band of elusive "army ants," check out the enormous nest they make with their own bodies, and witness their feeding frenzy as the ferocious swarm storms the science station. This is the third installment in a series of video journals by Dr. Corrie Moreau and her team documenting their 2012 expedition to catalog and study ant diversity in Costa Rica's Guanacaste region.

During the trip, team members collected ant specimens, reared live ants on special diets, and took samples of several ant species that will be studied back home at The Field Museum. By learning more about the relationship between diet, anatomy, and species diversity, the team hopes to better understand the mechanisms of evolution that affect all life on Earth.